Bradley Manning Being Ritually Stripped As Punishment, According to His Lawyer

Last week, Pfc. Bradley Manning, who’s facing preliminary charges related to leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, was forced by authorities at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, to sleep naked in his cell and remain naked through a jail roll call. Now his lawyer, David Coombs, says Manning’s being stripped ritually, forced to sleep naked in his cell every night as a punishment for a sarcastic comment he made. In a blog post yesterday afternoon, Coombs said Manning recently remarked that the prevention-of-injury restrictions at Quantico were “absurd,” and he sarcastically said that if he really wanted to harm himself, he could always do it with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops. So now he’s being forced to sleep naked. Quantico is refusing to explain why it is forcing Manning to sleep naked, but a spokesman has denied any desire to humiliate or embarrass theprisoner.